Safe



CStAKUH KUUW! i U m m 6 d Feb. 7, 1967 E. A. SABEL 3,302,595

SAFE

Filed July 20. 1964 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 Fig. l

ER! K A. SAB E L INVENTOR.

BY 4W E. A. SABEL F eb. 7, 1967 SAFE 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed July 20, 1964 ERIK A. SABEL INVENTOR.

BY 1 ,0? W

United States Patent 3,302,595 SAFE Erik A. Sabel, Ojebyn, Pitea, Sweden Filed July 20, 1964, Ser. No. 383,621 Claims priority, application Sweden, Feb. 13, 1964, 1,744/64 1 Claim. (Cl. 109-85) As a rule safes have hitherto been manufactured from thick steel sheets which means that such safes are very expensive. In spite of the high quality of steel used it has not always been possible to obtain sufiicient safety against burglary as the steel sheets used have not been sufficiently hard to prevent their being drilled into. On the other hand if they have been sufiiciently hard in this respect they have been so brittle that it has not been possible to obtain sufiicient security against damages caused by explosives or by being pounded by a sledge hammer or a claw wrench.

The aim of the present invention is to provide a safe which gives security against drilling as well as against blasting and which can be manufactured at costs considerably below those required for safes hitherto available in the market.

This problem has been solved by having the safe walls as well as the door of a cast iron of a hardness of at least 400 Brinell and reinforced with steel bars. Thereby the safe according to the invention is rendered very resistant to drilling due to the use of the hard cast iron, and due to the reinforcements it is rendered resistant also to blasting. The material used makes possible a manufacture of such a kind that the costs are reduced to about a third or half of the prices of hitherto known safes.

In the following, the invention will be elucidated with reference to the accompanying drawings. In the drawings:

FIG. 1 is a fragmental front elevation of a safe according to the invention,

FIG. 2 shows a section on the line IIII in FIG. 1, and

FIG. 3 shows the shape of the reinforcement for the safe according to the invention.

The safe according to the invention comprises a body 1 with an opening 2 which can be closed by means of a door 3. The door can be locked with a conventional safe lock which can be of any construction and thus will not be described in detail here. The walls 4, 5, 6 of the safe as well as its top 7 and its bottom 8 comprise a cast iron alloy with a hardness of at least 400 Brinell. However, it is recommended to use a cast iron alloy known under the name of Ni-hard which has a hardness of 600- 700 Brinell. Also the door 3 comprises such a material. However, such a hard material is brittle and could be destroyed by blasting or by means of blows with a sledge or the like. For this reason the safe body as well as its door 3 are reinforced by means of rods 9 which preferably have a diameter of 1 2 mm. and comprise steel 1311, Swedish standard, and have a content of carbon of 0.2% as a maximum. Swedish standard 1311 with a carbon content of 0.12% has a tensile strength of 45 kg./mm.

As the cast iron and the steel in the reinforcement rods 9 have different coeflicients of expansion there would be a risk of the formation of fissures when the safe is exposed to different temperatures. This drawback has been eliminated by having the reinforcement rods coated with a layer of a separating mass of such a nature that the reinforcement is free to move in the cast iron. Such a separating mass may e.g. comprise a mixture of sand and resin.

In the following table there is given an example of ice the composition of the cast iron even though the invention is not restricted to this specific embodiment:

Percent C 2.5-3.6 Si 0.4-1.0 Mn 0.3-1.2 S Max. 0.15 P Max. 0.3 Ni 3.0-5.0 Cr 1.2-2.5 Mo 0-0.4 Fe Balance.

In making a safe according to the invention a reinforcement 10 is manufactured from steel bars, the reinforecement being, for instance, of the kind illustrated in FIG. 3. The steel bars are bent to form a helice so that there is obtained a construction in the shape of a cage, i.e., with side walls and a bottom, one side left open so as to form the door opening. This reinforcement 10 can be arranged in a mould upon being provided with a separating mass of the kind described in the aforegoing, said mass being dried. The mould is thereupon filled with cast iron of such a composition that the solidified cast iron will have a hardness of at least 400 Brinell. There is thus obtained a safe body which, due to the hard cast iron, cannot be penetrated by means of drilling and due to the reinforcement 10, whose loops 11 are spaced only about three diameters from each other and interconnected by means of bars 12, it is almost impossible to force the walls of the safe by impact, e.g. blasting or pounding by means of a sledge or a claw wrench.

The door 3 is manufactured in a similar way, Le. a sufficiently strong reinforcement being first manufactured which is coated with a separating mass. The reinforcement thus obtained is then placed in the mould and the door is cast with a material of the kind stated above. The door 3 can be given many different shapes in a conventional manner so as to increase its durability, i.e. be provided with the bulge 13 shown in FIG. 2, as well as with a notch 14 for cooperation with a rib 15, the retaining of the door in the opening thereby being safer.

It should be mentioned that a safe according to the invention has been tested by the Swedish authorities concerned with regard to burglary safety and then it was ranked in thehighest class of safety (1st class V-3).

The invention is not restricted to the shown and described embodiment but many modifications could be carried out within the scope of the appended claim. Thus, the shape of the safe is indepedent of the invention. The important thing in combination with the reinforcement is-as already stated-that the steel bars are arranged sufi'iciently close to each other and are interconnected in such a way that it is ensured with safety that no forcing in between the bars is possible in case, by blows or the like, the hard cast iron between the bars be removed. Further, modifications in the composition of the cast iron are possible as long as its hardness will be higher than 400 Brinell. The thickness of the Walls may be varied as desired by a corresponding dimensioning of the mould.

What I claim is:

A method for making a safe body comprising coiling a steel rod in somewhat spiral shape to form a reinforcement for the back wall of the safe and coiling the rod to form generally helical loops to form reinforcement for the side, top and bottom walls of the safe, holding the loops of the general helix in spaced relationship to each other, coating the rod with a mixture of sand and resin, inserting the coiled rod into a mold, and casting cast iron alloy about the rod in the form of a safe body, the alloy has a Brinell hardness of at least 400.

References Cited by the Examiner UNITED STATES PATENTS Yale 109-85 X Lillie 109-85 X Hendrickson 109-85 X Damon 10985 Hardie.

Raym 22-201 Taylore't a1. 75-123 Campbell et a1. 22-201 Millis 75-123 Moore 75-123 REINALDO P. MACHADO, Primary Examiner. HARRISON R. MOSELEY, Examifzer. 10 L. s. SANTISI, Assistant Examiner. 

